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Happy 4th of July! Independence Day

Mon Jul 4, 2022


Happy Independence Day!

We as Americans celebrate this day as our national holiday every July 4th. We call it the "4th of July" to make it more special :) and it is special, because we got our independence from Britain and the tyrannical King George III.

On July 2, 1776, the Continental Congress voted in favor of declaring independence from Great Britain. The Declaration of Independence was officially adopted two days later, marked by the ringing of the Liberty Bell at Independence Hall in Philadelphia.


So how did we do this?
Click above and you'll see a cute Schoolhouse Rock video that describes it...
This is a video series I grew up watching - yes they are from the 70's :)
Here are the words to this song if you want to follow along as you watch it -

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Although our Independence Day celebrations fall on a different date, today’s July 4 festivities would look familiar to Adams, who called for people to celebrate the day with “Pomp and Parade, with Shows, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.”

The Fourth of July was celebrated annually throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, and in 1870, Congress declared the day a federal holiday. But it wasn’t until 1941 that the date became a paid federal holiday for federal employees. Today, fireworks displays around the country echo Adams’ call for “bonfires and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other.”

4th of July Facts
The Declaration of Independence was not signed on July 4, 1776. That’s actually the day it was formally adopted by the Continental Congress, but it wasn’t signed by most signatories until August.

American typically eat 150 million hot dogs on Independence Day, “enough to stretch from D.C. to L.A. more than five times,” according to the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council.

Three presidents have died on July 4: Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and James Monroe.

Taken from https://parade.com/1047578/lindsaylowe/4th-of-july-facts-history

Laurel Archer
A North Carolina-based teacher and lover of language and reading. She loves to find fun ways to teach English and connect with people all over the world.

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